Definitions of honor and service are always changing, perhaps never more so than in our world today.  (Foreword, Guion S. Buford, Jr.)

Before his death in 1906, noted essayist and poet luminary Paul Laurence Dunbar penned “The Colored Soldiers,” a literary paean commemorating the gallant exploits of men who risked all for a nation that seemed to be in the throes of historical forgetfulness.  (Introduction)

The paths that black Medal of Honor recipients took to the battlefields of the Civil War were just as diverse as the colors of the unit flags they swore to uphold.